Determinants of Muslim Female Participation in the Labour Force

The relationship between women and the labour market is not straightforward; instead, it is much more complex, and involves a lot of invisible forces operating and hence influencing women's participation. Among these, religion has a significant impact in women's decision to participate in the labour market. The aim of this paper was to identify the determinants of female participation rate; especially, Muslim females and to find out how significant religion was in influencing their participation in the labour market. The logistic regression analysis revealed that the religion variable had a highly significant impact on women's participation, with a negative impact on Muslim women's participation. There were other variables also, which significantly influenced women's decisions. However, the impact of these variables was felt differently on women's participation when they were observed through the lens of their respective religions.